(no subject)

One of my personal goals for this year is to get out and make more friends in the Seattle area. When I first moved here, I was dating someone in Portland and was focused on a new job. Therefore I spent most of my weekends going down to Portland or keeping busy with gaming conventions and events. Since I wasn't sure if I'd be moving to Portland or if Andrea might come up to Seattle or want to relocate elsewhere, I didn't put as much effort into getting to know people locally. During that time I did get to see a lot of WA/OR and met people at conventions all over the place, but really only had one person I knew locally to hang out with.

As such, I've been going to poly dinners, attending pagan discussion groups and a few rituals, going to parties I get invited to, and even placed a few personal ads on various sites. It's taking quite a while, but I feel I'm making some progress in recent months in having more social contact outside of coworkers and gaming buddies. I know that for me being happy requires not feeling isolated. I'd like to develop a romantic relationship with someone, which requires actually having people in my life. Go figure.

I guess I've always been a bit of an 'outcast' socially since I was very young. My family was military and we moved around a lot. In school I didn't fit into any clique. Because of my changing of schools on a regular basis, I was only able to get into a few Honors classes and bounced between the 'gifted' student classes and the 'regular' student classes so I didn't really even fit into the 'smart kids' group. After a while, I embraced being a 'misfit' and have chosen my own path. Sometimes it has been really hard going, other times it has been greatly rewarding and brought me experiences I would never have had otherwise.

I do think the 'outcast' aspect is still a part of my life. I run in a lot of 'alternative social circles', but I don't fully fit into any of them. I'm a computer 'geek', but I really prefer to leave that in my professional life and not spend a lot of free time outside of work dealing with or babbling about computer technology and software. I consider myself pagan, but 'non-practicing' pagan is probably more accurate; the world-view is very appealing to me and fits my morality and perspective, but I'm not a religious person by nature and don't feel a strong need for ritual or spiritual connection beyond what I feel in my daily life. I have a polyamorous perspective, but don't really want multiple serious relationships and certainly don't fit into the BDSMer or swinger subculture that has a lot of overlap with the poly folks. I really enjoying gaming, and I can obsesses with the best of them, but there are a lot of socially challenged individuals in the same group which I certainly don't identify myself with. Once upon a time, I enjoyed being in the SCA but not being a political personality I didn't really do more than 'dabble' at it. I love women singer/songwriter musicians, but somehow don't quite fit into the 'lesbian' lifestyle.

The problem with being a 'strange fish' (as a friend recently referred to me) is that I don't have a well-identified group of like-minds to connect with. I'm hard-pressed to easily identify myself strongly with any of the 'sub-groups' I spend time in. Certain aspects of each of them I find rewarding, other aspects keep me from feeling comfortable totally embracing them.

In the past, I've been lucky enough to find compatible people, but it is much easier to meet people in a large school where new people come into your life on a regular basis. Since I've always worked at small companies, work is not a good avenue to meet new people, and obviously many of my hobbies don't work well for that either (single well-adjusted gamer girls are a somewhat rarified commodity and not a lot of women at an Indigo Girl concert are looking to date a guy--even one who know knows all the lyrics). Starting a social circle 'from scratch' here in Seattle greatly limits the number of new people I run into on a regular basis...

Where does a 'strange fish' find a mate who isn't a nutball or likely to think I'm something I'm not?

(no subject)

Personals are so weird. Here I am browsing through little tidbits of information, writing introductory e-mails in the hopes they find my 'dating resume' interesting enough to actually return the e-mail. For the most part, I never hear a work back from anyone. As a single male, I'm lost in a sea of people looking hoping to be noticed through the noise.

The whole format seems totally hit or miss. If you are lucky enough to find someone you find genuinely intriguing, and are lucky enough that they even read your e-mail much less look at your ad, lucky enough they respond and THEN things actually go somewhere when you meet them... you both at least think the other person is interesting enough to put time into the endeavor.

I guess my concern is that people through personals are attempting to put forth the image they think is appealing, even if it isn't who they really are, and the reader is responding to things they think will lead to a fulfilling connection. I know plenty of people who seem to pick things they think they want, and it doesn't work out for them because what they want isn't likely to be found in the kind of person they select for themselves. I'm all for setting goals for oneself and going for what you want, but the whole personals process encourages molding your expectations no matter how unrealistic they may become. Even if they are realistic, how many people are skipped over because they didn't textually describe themselves with the right keywords...

I know there are things I find attractive in a woman: intelligence, wit, independence, emotional vulnerability, playfulness/flirtatiousness, curiosity, creativity, and probably more than anything complexity. I'm sorta all over the map in terms of physical appearance... I like tall women, mostly because it is rare to find a girl who approaches 6' (I'm 6' 2"), but I've dated plenty of average height women. I enjoy femininity, but jeans/t-shirt girls are fine as well. I'm not fixated on breast size (I've had a girlfriend who was extremely flat-chested and I've had a girlfriend who wore a 42 double-D sized bra) or hair color (red very attractive, but I've dated women with all shades of hair color) or eye color ( blue and green tend to be more striking I suppose) . I enjoy seeing women dressed up (in the bedroom and out), but I've always found the natural minimal/no makeup look very appealing. I like what I like, and what really matters is the chemistry and how she feels about herself. I think a stronger than average libido is probably a better fit for me, as is a strong emotionally expressive side.

I know what I have to offer in a relationship: I'm honest, communicative, physical affectionate, financially stable, good at housework, can cook, have a good sense of humor (more on the sarcastic side), a giving and playful lover, supportive, loyal, up to intellectual challenge and conversation, and emotionally expressive. I know who I am, where I came from, and where I'd like to be in terms of a relationship. I enjoy my career, but I'm flexible about the details. My emotional baggage has been organized into a neat little suitcase and I don't have any skeletons hiding the closet. I'm not afraid of putting effort into a relationship.

Still, I don't know how well I can really capture who I am in a few lines of text. If I have, it hasn't appealed to many people who are themselves browsing the personals sites. Of course, the reality is that the odds are totally against me in those forums anyhow... although it doesn't hurt to try--much anyway...